BIVOL DEFEATS SALAMOV IN RUSSIA
Ekaterinburg, Russia (December 12th, 2021)–Dmitry Bivol put a great performance Saturday, retaining his WBA light heavyweight title with a wide unanimous decision win over Umar Salamov in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
Bivol improved to 19-0 (11 KO) on scores of 118-110, 118-109, and 119-109, with Bad Left Hook also scoring the fight 119-109 for Bivol, who never let Salamov (26-2, 19 KO) into the fight or gave him much of a chance at sustained success.
Salamov was trying throughout, but Bivol was simply too sharp, too skilled, and too fundamentally sound for Salamov to take any advantage of pretty significant height and reach advantages. Though Bivol is not a big light heavyweight, his technical ability simply sets him apart from almost all opponents, and Salamov was just unable to do much of anything with him.
Bivol largely stuck to his jab, which he uses as an actual weapon, but occasionally would throw the right hand and some combinations on Salamov.
Bivol, 30, goes into 2022 still holding his belt at 175 lbs, but still not getting the best fights and international notoriety like Canelo Alvarez or Artur Beterbiev.
Undercard results
The planned co-feature between Magomed Kurbanov and Patrick Teixeira was canceled at the last minute, though both fighters weighed in OK on Friday and both even made it to the venue, where Kurbanov had a reported 102-degree fever (39 degrees Celsius) and was pulled from the bout, quite understandably.
Ruslan Kamilov KO-6 Dmitrii Khasiev
Shavkat Rakhimov RTD-2 Sardor Muzaffarov
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